


you're exactly the kinda trouble I need

by delightfulalot



Series: Love is a Four Letter Word [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Natasha/Clint/Coulson if you check all the corners, Spies!, clint/coulson if you squint your eyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 07:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delightfulalot/pseuds/delightfulalot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She looks into Clint's eyes, bright and happy, and she can feel something in the pit of her stomach - she's not sure what it is, but it feels mushy and sentimental, definitely compromising.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The story of Natasha Romanoff, post-meeting Clint Barton and his stupid cocky grin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're exactly the kinda trouble I need

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Ben Lee's "Get Gotten." Natasha is roughly the same age as Scarlett Johansson, so the story starts in the year 2000. The SVR is the current equivalent of the KGB. Very vague and not-so-vague references include: Alias, Young Justice, Homeland, To Have and Have Not, and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. See if you can spot them all! Movie-compliant.

 

She is a week away from taking down her target when she slips up. Someone gets by her - she doesn't know how, but one second she's focused on her target and the next a burly arm has hold of her, trying to take her. She's been attacked by civilians before, but it hasn't happened for years; still, she's a little panicked with what this guy wants to do with her, dragging her out of sight into an alley - that's happened too much for her, and never again.

She grabs his forearm and uses it to flip herself over so she's standing in front of him. He's caught off-guard, and she takes the opportunity to sweep his legs out from under him and catch her breath. He recovers quickly, but she's already blocking his blows, almost before he throws them. She's defending herself well - she's done this part so much it is basically second nature - but she can't quite seem to get the upper hand. She is reaching for her last resort, the knife tucked into an invisible pocket on the thigh of her pants, when suddenly he stops, looking shocked, and falls over towards her. She ducks out of the way of his body, just managing to miss getting crushed beneath him, and stares curiously at the arrow now sticking out of his back. She pulls it out to examine it more closely - she doesn't think she's ever seen someone shoot an arrow before. It seems impossibly old-fashioned in a world with guns and electronic shocks. She looks up, to see if she can spot the shooter, when suddenly there's a man crouched in front of her, apparently having just landed from somewhere above. She raises the arrow like a knife, defensive already. 

"Whoa!" he says, holding his hands up in supplication. He's American, she notes. That's unexpected. "Don't wanna hurt you. I would like my arrow back, though." 

She raises one eyebrow at him. He has a bow strapped across his chest and a full quiver of arrows on his back. 

He shrugs. "Sentimental value." 

She cracks a half-smile at that and hands the arrow back, head first. He takes it and wipes it off on his thigh, the blood leaving a shining smear on his dark pants, before tucking it away with the others. He nods his head toward the body on the ground. 

"Very impressive." 

She shrugs. "It was nothing," she says in Russian. 

He smirks. "Nice try, but I know you speak English."

"I knew I shouldn't have smiled," she says in English, with a little sigh. "I so rarely do." Her fingers have barely twitched toward her thigh when suddenly she's looking down the shaft of an arrow at his face, every trace of levity now wiped clean. She hadn't seen him reach for an arrow, let alone pull the bow from across his chest. This man is the swiftest she's ever seen, and she thought she'd seen the best. She tries not to shake in fear. 

"Don't even think about it," he says in a quiet voice so steely she can almost feel it cut her. "I know who you are, Natasha Romanoff." 

The blood in her veins goes ice cold. She is frozen, staring at him. No one has called her that in ten years, and she's had it driven into her that no one ever would again, and if they did, everything was over. "This is it," she thinks, in Russian, French, English, a dozen different languages, her mind muddled and confused. Her brain is misfiring - it's over, she's lost, it's time to surrender. She relaxes her hand, lets it drift away from her knife, and he lowers his arrow, though she notices he keeps his hand on the string of his bow. He grins, and the difference in his face is remarkable; if she were a different person, she might let herself actually relax at that. 

"Now. My orders weren't to bring you in, but I think you'd do well with us. I'm Clint Barton, by the way. It's nice to meet you." The arrows slides swiftly back into his quiver and he holds out his hand for her to shake. She takes it, his rough hand practically enveloping her soft one. 

"C'mon," he says, nodding his head over his shoulder and pulling her along with him, out of the alley. Once they reach the street, he lets go of her hand, and she pulls it to her chest. No one's held her hand like that...ever, maybe. She has niggling thoughts of being young and having some tall person guide her places, but nothing solid, nothing _real_.  

He starts walking swiftly, and she walks half a second behind, a little bewildered at this turn of events. She passes her target's building and spares half a second's thought for her original mission before shaking it off. That mission is over. She's following Barton now. 

"You know, you're a lot younger than I thought," he says, throwing it over his shoulder at her. "How old are you, anyway?" 

She debates lying, but instead says, "Sixteen." He lets out a low whistle. 

"You must be a busy little girl to have a kill list as long as yours. What, they don't have _My Little Pony_ in Russia? Nothing to distract you?"

"Distractions are for the weak," she says, a little bit of her original steely reserve slipping back into her voice. 

He turns around to make a face at her. "Please, no Russian stoicism, it's been a long day and we've got a longer day ahead of us." 

"What?" she asks, and the steel is gone. "Where are we going?" 

"I told you, I'm bringing you in." 

"In where?"

" _That_ is something I should keep to myself, for now at least." He stops and takes his hand in hers again. "Gotta save some secrets for the honeymoon." He winks at her, and then pulls her along with him, picking up the pace. 

She really doesn't know what to do with this guy, but she's not dead and at least that's something. 

-

Barton takes her to a small airport and a high-tech private passenger plane sitting on the tarmac away from the crowds, where a man in a suit just barely widens his eyes at her before taking Barton far enough away to have a conversation that she can't make out. The man in the suit is even smart enough to turn his back to her so she can't read his lips; she assumes that's in her file along with her name. She still watches, though, the tension in the man's shoulders and the way his hands fidget with how he wants to throw them around. She also watches Barton. He stands there and takes his dressing down, and when he does start to talk back, he doesn't let himself be turned around, instead letting Natasha see everything he's saying about her. If she were a different girl, she'd blush at his awe over her skills, but as it is her fingers itch with the need to show him just how talented she is. 

When they are on the plane and strapped in, she can feel the man in the suit's eyes on her, even though he's sitting all the way in the back, tucked into a corner. She forces herself to relax, stop focusing on every little thing around her. She turns to Barton, sitting next to her, and says, "You've only seen me in hand-to-hand combat. You should see me with a knife, or the widow's bite." 

He shakes his head and smiles. "I'm pretty okay I didn't face you down with something called 'the widow's bite.' We'll deal with those later, though." 

She smiles back. "I promise you won't be disappointed." 

He laughs. "That face, right there," he says, pointing at her, "is why your kill list is so long." 

"I just take pride in what I do." 

His smile falls fast at that. "Yeah, well, that's something else we have to work out. Just what exactly you should be doing. Or at the very least, for who." 

She opens her mouth to argue, and then closes it. She has never cared who she has worked for. Why should she start now? 

"Now, I have a surprise for you," he says, pulling out a portable DVD player and setting it on the small table in front of them. "Are you ready?" He looks at her, eyes bright, and she is hit by a strong rush of emotion that she doesn't know how to articulate. She nods, and he turns on the DVD player. It's a brightly colored cartoon about plastic-looking horses with shiny hair. 

"Uh, what is this?" she asks after a second. Some of the horses are wearing things on their heads, and all of them are talking. It's a little freaky. 

"Duh, it's _My Little Pony_!" he says excitedly. 

"Oh," she says, and she can't help the small smile that spreads across her face at the look on his. She settles back to watch with him, and it only occurs to her what emotion is swelling in her chest about an hour later, while watching Barton laugh his head off at something that's not that funny. It's _affection_. 

She's in trouble. 

- 

When they get to their destination, a tall block of a building in New York City, the man in the suit leads them down to the lower levels, empty hallways with no windows, before saying, "Agent Barton, Director Fury is waiting for you in the conference room." 

Barton nods and starts walking down a side hallway. Natasha tries to follow him, but is pulled up short with a sharp, "Ms. Romanoff."

She turns to look at the man in the suit, who gives her a tight smile. 

"If you'd be so kind as to come with me?" 

She acquiesces with only one small glance at the place where Barton disappeared. The man in the suit leads her though hallway after hallway and down two flights of stairs before going into a non-descript office. There's a couch along one wall, stacked with papers, and a meticulously neat desk against another wall with two stuffed chairs in front of it. 

"Sit down," he says, taking his seat behind the desk. She chooses the chair on the left and notices the small nameplate: Agent Philip J. Coulson. 

"Ms. Romanoff," he says again, and her head snaps up. "You are in a very unique situation here. I'm not sure what Agent Barton told you - what he should have told you was nothing - but his orders were definitely not to bring you back here. However, Barton saw something that he liked, I suppose, and now that you are at headquarters, we can't let you leave." He smiles with a closed mouth. 

"If you don't mind my asking," she says, and she can feel her accent slowly slipping away, the way it does when she starts any long mission. "What is this the headquarters of?" 

"That's classified. You won't be privy to any sort of important information until we're sure of your loyalty. We have had an eye on you for years, Ms. Romanoff, and we haven't always liked what we've seen." 

"Is that a threat?" she asks, and her finger twitches towards her thigh, before she remembers that they took her knife back on the plane. She feels naked, and definitely not in the fun way. 

"It's a fact," Agent Coulson says. "The first thing you'll be doing is training with another agent. We'll assess your current skill level, both with and without weapons - we managed to get someone into your place in Moscow to pick up your wristlets. What do you call them?" 

"The widow's bite," she says proudly. 

"Yes, well, we've picked up 'the widow's bite,' though we have weapons manufacturers that could perhaps give them an upgrade." 

Her eyes light up. "Really?" she asks eagerly, maybe a little too. "They have been acting up lately, I think there might be a short." 

"Training first, then weapons," he says, but there's an underlying softness that hadn't been there previously. 

"Can I train with Barton?"

"That is, in fact, one of the terms of this agreement. Barton - _Agent_ Barton will be largely responsible for you, until we can determine you loyal enough to our cause to work on your own." 

She nods, satisfied. 

"Now, Ms. Romanoff, if you'll follow me, I'll show you to your room." He gets up from his seat and leads her down the hallway again, and when they get to her room, a tiny square room with a bed, desk, and nightstand shoved into it, Barton is there, sprawled across her bed with his DVD player, watching _My Little Pony_ again and laughing. 

- 

They train almost constantly, just the two of them sparring in an always empty gym, which Natasha finds strange until Barton tells her that there are 14 other gyms on this floor _alone_. He uses her distracted disbelief to try to land a punch, but she has him on the ground before he can connect. 

"Okay," he groans, not moving. "Ten points for you. I think it's time to move on to weapons." 

"Oh, please," she says, laughing. "You're just saying that because you're tired of getting beat up by a girl."

She doesn't offer him a hand up, because that's something they have never, ever done, but once he's up and next to her again, she does offer him her water bottle, which he takes gratefully.

"That is entirely untrue. I always enjoy getting beat up by girls." He grins at her, that stupid cocky grin of his that she can feel down to her bones. She has never enjoyed that grin, no matter how many times her body has told her differently. 

"Anyway, Phil thinks you're ready to move on to weapons, too." 

"Phil?" 

"Coulson." 

"Yes, I know who Phil is," she says, maybe a little sharper than she intended to. "I just didn't realize he was the one in charge of my training." With a sudden burst of anger at this secretive world she's found herself in - _yet again_ -  she kicks the punching bag next to them, sending it swinging so hard it almost slips off the chain. 

"Jesus Christ!" he says, dodging and weaving until he can reach out to steady it. "Calm down, kid. He's not in charge of you, but he's in charge of me and _I'm_ in charge of you." 

"And who's in charge of him? Or am I still not allowed to know?" 

"What, Coulson didn't tell you?" 

"No," she says, and the anger she feels at Barton starts to dissipate at the look on his face. 

"Goddamn Coulson. He's just a little overprotective, I think. We work for SHIELD." 

"Shield?" she asks, trying out the word in her mouth. It seems a little on-the-nose.

"Yeah, it stands for - hold on, I can never remember this." Barton goes digging through his gym bag and finds his official vest, the one she sometimes sees him slip away in. Once she spotted him in his vest and didn't see him again for seven days. 

It was a lonely week. 

"Let's see," he says, looking closely at the insignia on the chest. "Officially, we work for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." He looks up at her and grins. "Hell if I know what that means, but mostly we deal with stuff that can't really be explained. Kinda like _The X-Files_ , but with more mad scientists and less aliens."

She just looks at him, head cocked, and his mouth drops open a little in shock. 

"You don't know what _The X-Files_ is, do you?" 

She shakes her head, once, and he grins. 

"My girl, we have a lot of work to do." He starts packing up his gym bag and heading for the door. "Come on," he calls after a minute when he realizes she's still sitting there. 

He makes a phone call on the way back to her room, and there is a small package of DVDs waiting on her desk when they get there. Barton pops the first one in the DVD player hooked up to the TV he got her on her second day, and settles onto her bed like he belongs there. She rolls her eyes and dumps her gym bag next to his and settles next to him and if their bodies touch in a few places - well, it is a small bed. 

- 

Natasha's on her way to a meeting with Coulson - she thinks he's going to give her the "widow's bite" wristlets back - when she hears Clint's voice. 

"I don't know, man," he says. "She's kinda like this little Russian gnat, always buzzing around my head." 

She pauses - he's talking about her. She can feel hurt and outrage start to swell in her chest when he laughs. 

"I love it." 

"Gnats don't buzz, mosquitos do," Coulson says in an off-handed way that means he's doing paperwork. 

"Well, I'd rather call her 'Nat,' so I'm going to ignore that comment." 

There's a rustle of paper, and then Coulson says very seriously, "Barton. You know you can't get attached." 

"I'm not getting attached. I just think she's great. Did you know she's funny? She's _really_ funny." 

"Clint. I'm serious. This is why they didn't want you to be her handler." 

Clint sighs. "I know, Phil. It's just hard." 

"Oh, I know," Coulson says. "Believe me, I know."

There's silence, and then a soft sigh, and then Clint comes strolling out of Coulson's office, grinning. 

"Hey, Nat!" he exclaims when he sees her. He throws an arm around her shoulder. "Whatcha up to?" 

"Going to see Coulson," she says, gesturing to the door not ten feet in front of them. 

"Oh, yeah. I hear you're getting a surprise today." He waggles his eyebrows at her, his eyes bright.

"It's not a surprise if you tell everyone about it, Barton," Coulson calls from inside his office. 

"Wouldn't dream of doing a thing like that, sir," Clint says, but he winks at Natasha, and then squeezes her shoulder and takes off down the hallway, whistling the whole way. She watches as he leaves, and tries to ignore the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach. 

- 

After three months of weapons training they get sent on their first mission together. It's mainly recon, with Natasha on the ground in her business suit, a knife strapped to the inside of her thigh she never once gets to use, and Clint watching from rooftops and fire escapes. She almost never sees him from the second the plane touches down, but he is a constant presence in her ear over the comms, and she lets herself think that maybe she could get used to the sensation of him murmuring in her ear. 

They don't see much action on the mission, but four days in there's a sharp, "On your left, Widow," in her ear, and she spins and takes out the guard sneaking up on her. She manages to leave him unconscious and relatively unharmed _and_ grab the information she was looking for in the first place. When she leaves the building, briskly but not quick enough to warrant attention, she can hear the grin in his voice when he says, "Excellent job, Black Widow." 

"Thanks to my guardian angel," she says, shooting a quick glance up to the rooftop where she knows he's situated, though he's invisible from the ground. 

On the plane back he gives her a small, slightly squashed cupcake with an unlit candle on top. 

"Your file says today's your birthday, so happy birthday, Nat," he says. 

She honestly can't remember the last birthday she celebrated. She's not sure she even knew when her birthday was, but of course SHIELD would have that information. She looks into Clint's eyes, bright and happy, and she can feel something in the pit of her stomach - she's not sure what it is, but it feels mushy and sentimental, definitely compromising. She's trying to tamp it down when he winks at her and says, "Go ahead. Make a wish and blow it out." 

She puts her lips together and blows, letting out a small whistle over the candle, and he laughs and applauds. 

"That's my girl," he says, and his smile is so wide she can't help but fall in love. 

-

Their next two missions go off without a hitch; it's the fourth that gives her trouble. Somehow, she attracts a tail right after they arrive and has to spend the first three days trying to lose it, pretending she's in Norway in January for the fucking weather or something. The only thing Clint's saying over the comms is "not yet," or "still there," and she doesn't remember the last time she was this frustrated. On the fourth day she honestly can't take it anymore, and she starts charging her wristlets before Clint notices.

"Um, Nat?" he says when she stops dead in the middle of the almost deserted sidewalk, waiting for the last bystander to disappear around a corner. 

"What -" is all he can get out before she spins around, dropping the widow's bite at her tail's feet. Natasha is on the other woman before she can drop from the shock, holding her up so she doesn't fall flat. 

"I knew I would find you again," the other woman forces out, her body still twitching. "They said I was wrong." 

"Katerina?" she asks, shocked. The other woman smiles, and then her eyes close. Natasha stumbles just a little bit as she completely passes out, her weight getting a little heavier in Natasha's arms.

"Black Widow! What's going on?" Clint exclaims in her ear. 

"I...I think I know her."

"Have you been made?" 

Natasha looks around the street. It's still mostly deserted, but there's an older man looking at her curiously from in front of a building across from her. 

"I don't think so, but I need to get her inside. I'm attracting attention." 

Clint appears around the corner almost immediately and walks briskly up to her, shouldering half of the woman's weight and continuing on without pausing. "There's an office building about two blocks from here," he mutters out of the side of his mouth. "Think you can make it?" 

Natasha nods, and they continue on in silence, only struggling a little with the body between them. When they get to their destination, a man in a suit who looks not unlike Coulson greets them and whisks the body away, and Clint takes Natasha by the arm and leads her into an office and closes the door behind them. She pulls her arm away from him and walks over to lean against the opposite wall, as far away from him as she can get. 

"Would you like to tell me what the hell is going on?"

"I knew my tail. Katerina. We trained together in Russia." 

He nods, and a muscle jumps in his jaw. "And did you know this before you defied direct orders and unleashed a weapon on her?" 

She is a mess of emotions: shocked and saddened by the reappearance of a former friend, still frustrated by her impotence on the mission so far, anger at herself for giving in to her frustration, and still trying to tamp it all down, like she was taught a good spy always does, and so it doesn't surprise her to feel another flare of anger, this time at Clint's words. She pushes herself off the wall and walks towards him.

"And how did I _defy_ orders, Hawkeye?" 

"You were told to not draw undue attention, _Black Widow_ ," he says, and though he always calls her that on missions, he seems to be spitting the name at her now, "and yet you used your most distinctive weapon on someone tailing you in the middle of the street!"

"I waited until the only passerby turned the corner!"

"And yet, you were still almost made!" 

She glares at him and turns away, crossing her arms over her chest. He sighs. 

"I'm sorry for yelling," he says, though his voice is still hard. "I was just worried about you. We have those rules for your protection." 

She scoffs and turns to face him again, her hands now balling into fists at her sides. "Really? Or are they for your protection from me?" 

"What? Come on, Nat -"

"No, don't 'Nat' me. I defected from Russia, my home, over a year ago, and this is my fourth mission for you, for SHIELD, and yet I am still treated like a prisoner, someone not to be trusted!" 

"They're just being cautious, Natasha."

"Who's 'they'?" 

"Fury. SHIELD. I don't know, people above my security clearance. You're a special case; there's never been someone brought in we were supposed to kill before." 

She freezes. "What?" 

Clint's eyes widen as he realizes what he's just said. "Oh, shit," he says quietly. 

"You were supposed to kill me?" 

He nods, slowly. "Those were my orders." 

"And you didn't because?" 

"Because of that guy who attacked you. You defended yourself, but you didn't instigate anything, and I didn't see you reach for a weapon until he almost got the upper hand." He pauses, and his face goes hard again. "Which is why today was such a shock." 

She tries not to fidget, feeling like a small child called into the principal's office. "I was tired of not being able to do anything. The widow's bite doesn't last long; I just wanted to get her off my tail." 

"And you say you know her?" 

"Yes." 

"Did she recognize you?"

"She said something like 'they said I'd never find you again'." 

"So maybe you're believed to be dead." 

Natasha shrugs. "I guess." 

"Well, let's go see if they've managed to get any details out of her." He holds out a hand for her, but she ignores it and leads him out of the room. 

The mission ends up not being a complete failure, minus their inability to complete their objective. Katerina ends up being a veritable font of information, and confirms that the SVR thinks that Natasha is dead. She also has intel on some new science projects they're working on, and for two months after Natasha and Clint bring Katerina back to the States, everyone at SHIELD is practically running through the halls in excitement at their new info. During their first debrief back, Fury even almost cracks a smile. 

"Good work, Agent Romanoff," he says, and Clint leans over when Fury's out of earshot and whispers, "If he had one more eye, he would have winked at you." Natasha rolls her eyes at that, but she still gets a thrill out of finally being valued. It's finally feeling different from her work before, and she thinks that maybe deciding to follow Clint is one of the best decisions she's ever made; maybe she's found a place to call her own.

- 

Three days after her eighteenth birthday finds her fidgety and restless. She hasn't been on a mission in over a month. She's taken to haunting the hallway outside Coulson's office, hoping he'll open the door and tell her some evil scientist somewhere has made city destroying robots, and she'll get to go take them down. 

She is actively hoping for something to try to destroy a city; that's how bored she is. 

Finally, Coulson does open his door, but when she springs forward his face looks as impassive as it always does on normal days, not drawn like it does when mad scientists appear. 

"Agent Romanoff," he says, nodding at her, and then he retreats back inside. She takes the hint and practically runs into his office, shutting the door behind her and settling onto his couch. 

"Bad news?" she asks, probably too eagerly judging by the way his face pulls into a frown. 

"It's still quiet," he says, picking up some of the papers stacked onto the other side of the couch and putting them on the floor. 

She groans and lets her head fall back onto the couch. "I need something to do." 

"I know," he says, sitting on the cleared space next to her. "But unfortunately for you, the world appears to be safe for the moment." 

She waves her hand dismissively. "Good for the world, I guess." 

"I have some research you could do, if you feel so inclined. HYDRA looks like it might be gearing up to return to its former glory." 

"What's HYDRA?" 

"They were a German group operating in the forties. An off-shoot of the Nazi party, focusing on mystical elements mixed with science." 

"And they're coming back?" 

Coulson shrugs. "They might be. One of our undercover operatives says a very important file went missing from headquarters last week, so we're keeping an eye." 

Natasha sits straight up. "We have undercover operatives?" 

"Of course we do." 

"Long-term undercover operatives?" 

He nods. 

"Why am _I_ not one of these long-term undercover operatives?"

He tilts his head. "Do you want to be?" 

And that's how she ends up working in Reed Richards's office for six months. 

SHIELD isn't actively watching Richards for any particular reason, but they find it's generally a good idea to keep an eye on people who use government funding to work on potential trips to outer space. Natasha's time in his office - or lab, actually - doesn't yield any new information about Richards, though she learns a few things about Victor Von Doom for her employer. The best part of working undercover is definitely her return to her real life. 

She stops by Coulson's office immediately after her debrief with Fury, and is not at all surprised to find Clint sprawled on his couch, a beer in his hand, though she's a little surprised to see Coulson has a beer as well, sitting behind his desk, and she's particularly surprised at the feeling she gets in her gut when she sees the two of them laughing at something. It's not love, or even what she used to think of as love, anytime she saw Clint. It's a different kind of affection, a _fondness_ , for both of these men, what one might even call her _team_. 

She's never really had a team before, at least not one that she wouldn't turn right around and kill. 

Natasha walks right in and drops onto the couch next to Clint, swiftly stealing his beer right from his hand before sitting down. 

"Hey!" he exclaims. "Aren't you underage?" 

Though she is, technically, underage, not to mention a government employee, she merely raises an eyebrow at him. 

"Phil!" 

Coulson shrugs. 

"If you really want to take it back, be my guest." 

Clint deflates at that, and Natasha smiles smugly and drinks his beer. The next time Coulson pulls a beer from his secret under-desk refrigerator, though, he tosses one each to Clint and Natasha, and before long they're trading stories about undercover missions and Clint's acting out jokes and Coulson is actually laughing, almost too hard to breathe, and Natasha knows that these two are the closest things she's ever had to friends. 

-

She and Clint get sent on a clusterfuck of a mission about a year later. By this point, though they don't always work together, when they do they are seamless, two halves of a whole. The Budapest mission, though, is apparently screwed even before they leave, and they end up arriving in the middle of a firefight. Natasha resorts to using a gun, being too overwhelmed to use the widow's bite, with the enemy too far away for hand-to-hand or knife fighting, and Clint, right next to her, works his way through almost his entire quiver of arrows in what seems like minutes. 

"Hawkeye! Black Widow! Retreat!" Their commander's voice, Agent Brody, rings out over the comms. 

"Yeah, no shit!" Clint yells back as they turn around and run back the way they came. Brody lets Clint's comment slide and just calls out directions for them, so they're zig-zagging all over Budapest, trying to lose the enemy, until finally he gives the all-clear. 

"What now?" Natasha asks, but Brody's gone radio silent. Clint points down a side street. 

"I think I remember a hotel down this way." 

He starts heading that way, but she pulls him up short with, "Hawkeye. You've still got your uniform on." 

He looks down at his vest and then uses the bow in his hand to gesture towards her. "You too, Widow." 

She looks around and spots a tourist shop tucked into a corner of the street. "What do you say?" she asks, nodding towards it. "Should we be tourists?"

They attract a little bit of attention in the shop, mainly from Clint's quiver knocking over a shelf of souvenirs, but Natasha is able to keep them from getting kicked out with some of SHIELD's money. They pick up a couple of t-shirts and sweatshirts, everything with _Budapest_ written all over it in neon, and Natasha even picks up two pairs of pajama pants, purple for Clint and a sky blue for herself. She changes in the tiniest bathroom she's ever seen, but Clint just pulls the sweatshirt over his vest. 

"Don't we look lovely?" he asks, smirking at her when she emerges in her pajama pants and Budapest t-shirt. She tries really hard not to hit him, and instead holds a large canvas bag open for him. 

"Arrows," she says, and he obediently drops his quiver and collapsed bow in. He looks a little sad as she pulls the bag closed and hoists it onto her shoulder. 

"There're only four left," he says as they exit the shop, looking like the obnoxious American tourists they have never been. 

"You've got more at home," she says dismissively. 

"Yeah, I guess." 

He looks so dejected that she can't help but slide her hand into his. He looks up at her and gives her a sad smile that says everything they don't really say to each other. She nods, and his smile gets a little more real. 

He leads her around the corner to a nice, historic hotel, the rooms small and close together. Their room is almost completely filled with a large, new bed, but they also have a window that opens onto a small balcony, and it's as good a place as any to wait for further instructions, and about a thousand times better than that time they were actually stuck in a sewer for six hours. 

She dumps the bag containing his arrows and her clothes into a corner and stands at the window, trying to see if she can figure out where their earlier fight took place. She sees a small plume of smoke about three miles away, and is trying to decide if they accidentally set anything on fire when something out of the corner of her eye catches her attention. 

Clint is sitting on the bed, his sweatshirt bunched on the floor next to him, and is slowly unzipping his vest. She watches as he shrugs out of it, wincing a little as it rubs against a cut on his torso she hadn't even realized he had, and desire curls in her stomach. Without second guessing herself, she pulls her own shirt off, crosses to him, and straddles his lap. 

"What -" he starts to ask, his hands automatically resting on her thighs, but she puts her hands on either side of his face and licks into his mouth. He moans, one hand moving around to the small of her back, and returns her kiss. She smiles against his mouth and moves her hands to his chest, one hand trailing down his stomach. He breaks apart from her, his hand on her back moving to grab her wrist. 

"Natasha," he gasps, and she almost says something snotty about being in trouble when he uses her full name, "we can't do this." His other hand is resting on her upper chest, as if he means to push her away. 

She tries not to roll her eyes, and instead pulls her wrist from his hand and concentrates on trying to get his ridiculously complicated belt undone. "Don't worry. I'm not a child," she says, and rolls her hips, rubbing against his growing erection and making him hiss through his teeth. "I won't fall in love with you." 

A look of uncertainty or something like it flickers across his face, and she feels a rush of emotion in her gut much different than the desire from earlier, more like what she used to think of as love, and it almost makes her pause - but the next second the look is gone, replaced by his familiar cocky grin. 

"No, you're definitely not a child," he says, his gaze flickering over her breasts. She grins and covers his lips with hers again. 

- 

Things don't change much after Clint and Natasha start sleeping together regularly. They still stop by Coulson's office after debriefs, drinking and trading stories and laughing. They are still seamless in missions, whether they are both on the ground or Clint is watching from above. He still teases Natasha and she still responds by inflicting slight physical harm on him. The biggest difference is that they put their espionage skills to the test by sloppily making out all over SHIELD headquarters. They manage to escape detection until they make the biggest mistake they can make, and try to fool around in Coulson's office when he steps out. 

When he walks back in, carrying the file for their next mission, he stops, takes the sight of them in, and sighs. Immediately, Clint and Natasha are on opposite ends of the room. 

"Really?" he asks as he sets the file on his desk, sounding weary. "This is happening?" 

Clint shrugs, avoiding Coulson's eye and staring at the floor. Natasha, on the other hand, looks directly at Coulson. 

"This isn't a problem. There are no feelings involved, no emotions. It's merely a way to let off steam regularly." 

Clint looks at her, maybe a little confused, and then quickly back to the floor, his face going a little harder than normal. 

"And you don't believe you've been compromised, Agent Romanoff?" Coulson asks, raising an eyebrow slightly. Natasha notes the use of her official name, and nods. 

"I believe my new relationship with Agent Barton is nothing but helpful; we have managed to retain our previous working relationship and have only gained new knowledge, which helps our partnership stay strong." 

Coulson nods. "And Agent Barton?" 

Clint finally looks up at Coulson and says, "I agree with everything Natasha said." His voice has an edge to it, a note in it that makes her look at him a little differently, wondering if he really agrees with her. 

Before she can do anything more than that, though, Coulson says, "Of course. Agent Romanoff, would you mind if I speak to Barton alone?" His eyes never leave Clint's, not even when Natasha straightens her slightly mussed shirt and leaves the room. 

She waits in the hallway for Clint, and when he exits, he's in a much better mood, seemingly more like himself. She thinks about asking him what he and Coulson talked about, or what he was thinking about in there, or why he seemed a little sad and angry, but then he wraps an arm around Natasha's neck and pulls her head to his chest. She wriggles out of his grasp and simultaneously slaps the back of his head and kicks the back of his knees, almost sending him to the floor. He laughs and tries to grab her around the waist; she dances just out of his reach. They keep trying to get the better of each other as they walk down the hall, and she forgets all about what happened in Coulson's office. 

-

The month she turns 21, Fury sends her on a solo mission to Russia, her first trip back to the motherland since she left five years before. Clint spends the week leading up to the trip by teasing her about what she'll do once she gets there: "Drink a lot of vodka and get your accent back, I assume." 

"I do that already, baby," she says in Russian, her accent as pitch perfect as it was as a child, and pats Clint on the cheek. He looks a little startled - it is, in fact, the first time she's spoken Russian since the day they met - and then blinks, and looks at her through lowered eyelids. 

"Pretty sexy, Nat," he murmurs, his hand sliding from her stomach to her back, and she rolls her eyes, bends his fingers back and makes him jump away from her. "Holy hell!" 

"Break it up, kids," Phil says, walking past them down the hallway, but he turns back and winks at them before he turns the corner. 

"Can't believe you're on her side!" Clint yells after him, and Phil quickly checks that no superiors are watching before surreptitiously throwing his middle finger up at Clint, a move that always delights him to no end. Sure enough, Clint turns to Natasha and starts giggling. She rolls her eyes. 

"You're such a child, Barton," she says, moving to leave him. He grabs her wrist before she gets far, and when she looks at him again, he's serious. 

"Really, Natasha. Are you okay to be heading back there?" 

She shrugs her shoulders. "It's just like any other mission, right?" 

He doesn't say anything, just holds her gaze. She sighs, and lets her hand slip down into his. 

"I'll be okay, Clint. I promise." 

He squeezes her hand, and then leans forward to whisper in her ear. "Just come back to me, okay?" 

She almost has to close her eyes against a sudden rush of emotion; she has long since given up on love in general, and loving Clint Barton in particular, but she still feels that familiar tug in her stomach when she feels his breath on her skin.

-

They start to tell each other their secrets after long missions. It starts out in an almost official capacity, when Natasha freezes on a run-of-the-mill mission in Sao Paolo and is only brought out of it when the enemy takes her down. Clint and Phil don't mention it during the debrief, and Fury never asks, but once they're back in Phil's office Clint doesn't even let her get a drink before asking what the hell happened to her. 

That's when she mentions the four months she spent in Brazil at the age of twelve, four months she can't remember and isn't sure if she wants to. 

"That kind of compromising information is something I need to know," Phil says in his most official Coulson voice, but he settles onto the couch next to her, not close enough to touch but close enough that she can feel his body heat, and she lets herself relax a little. 

Clint hands them beers and flops onto the couch on her other side, stretching out so they're knocking knees and elbows, and they're both so much themselves, not having changed for knowing a little more about her, that she lets herself fully relax. 

Eventually they run out of life-altering secrets to tell and it turns into embarrassing ones. Clint reveals that he can tap dance. Natasha reveals that she is a fan of absolutely terrible pop music, especially after a few glasses of whiskey. Clint makes Phil spill his most embarrassing secret one night after a particularly rough mission and long debrief with Fury _and_ Hill. Clint is stretched from end to end of the couch, his feet in Phil's lap and his head in Natasha's. She and Phil both have a bottle of beer in hand, and Clint has one on the floor, sitting next to her feet. 

"You should ask Phil why he got started in this business," Clint slurs into her thigh. He's already had quite a few beers, and doesn't have her Russian tolerance. 

She looks at Phil, one eyebrow cocked, but he just shrugs and says, "Patriotism. Love of the country and all that." 

Clint snorts and tries to raise his head to look at Phil, but groans and drops back into Natasha's lap, making her let out a small _oof_. 

"If you do that again, I'm shoving you off," she says, but he waves a hand and then settles it over his eyes. 

"Phil, seriously, tell Nat how deep your patriotism goes."

If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn't believe the way Phil's face goes entirely red and bashful. 

"Are you _blushing_?" she asks, and Clint snorts again. 

"Oh yes he is," he says without moving his hand away from his eyes. 

"Okay, now I have to hear this. Just how patriotic are you?"

Phil sighs and starts unbuttoning his long-sleeve white shirt. He slips his left arm out of the shirt and pulls up the sleeve of his white undershirt to reveal: 

"Is that a _Captain America shield_?" She tries to stifle the laughter bubbling up in her throat, but Clint is laughing so hard that he actually rolls off the couch to the floor, ending up in a crouch next to them and only narrowly avoiding knocking over his beer. 

"Please don't spill beer all over my office again, Barton." 

"Don't get pissy, sweetheart," Clint says, which only makes Phil's face go even more still, a certain sign he's about to get _extremely_ pissy. 

"Can I see it again?" Natasha asks, scooting over until she's next to Phil. He lifts his sleeve again, and she reaches out to rub a finger over the star in the middle of the shield. "When did you get it?" 

"At 18. And then I joined up." 

"That's adorable," she says, and there's only a trace of laughter in her voice.

"He has the card collection, too," Clint says, and if she hadn't spent the last nine years of her life learning everything she could about her partner she would not have understood him through the giggling. She aims a kick at his shin, and he makes a grunting noise and rolls onto his back. 

"My grandfather got me the first card," Phil says, ignoring Clint, which is really the only thing to do when he gets drunk and silly like this. "I didn't start really collecting them until after he died, though." 

"Do you believe Cap's still out there somewhere?" she asks, genuinely curious. Phil doesn't seem the type to believe in conspiracy theories, but she'd also never thought he'd be the type to have a tattoo. 

Phil shakes his head, and he only looks a little sad. "No, I think he's gone. But it's nice to think he's still around, even if just in spirit."

Clint snorts, and Natasha shoots a look at him that shuts him up quickly. "That's really nice, Phil," she says, and she settles her hand on his.

-

When she gets assigned to the top-secret Avengers Initiative and told to track Tony Stark, almost the first thing she does is tell Clint, while they're huddled together on Phil's couch. 

"You get to track goddamn Iron Man?" he asks, incredulously. "Why the hell can't I do it?" 

"You're not his type," Phil says from his desk, not looking up from his paperwork.

"Well, _shit_ ," Clint says. "Just once, I'd like to get to seduce the rich guy." 

Natasha makes a face. "I'm not going to seduce him. He's probably going to try to seduce _me_ , but it's not going to happen." 

"You bet your ass it's not going to happen." 

She rolls her eyes. They haven't slept together in seventeen months (not that anyone's counting), but Clint still pretends to lay claim to Natasha anytime she mentions anyone else. 

"Natasha's main goal is to evaluate Stark for the Avengers Initiative," Phil says, and then, once he's realized it, he points a finger at Clint. "And you are not to repeat anything you hear in here." 

"My lips are sealed, baby." Clint mimes zipping his lips. "What happens in Vegas and all that." 

"Yeah, well, this is a little more top-secret than sleeping with a hooker. And please don't say anything about that, it's too easy," Phil says, holding up his hand and looking pained. Clint closes his mouth with a snap. Natasha changes the subject by asking what her secret identity should be. Clint immediately grins his most lecherous grin. 

"I think you should be an underwear model." 

Natasha punches his shoulder, hard, but Phil looks back up from his paperwork, interested. 

"That's actually a good idea," he says thoughtfully. 

Natasha scowls as Clint's grin gets cockier. "I know," she grumbles. "It'll help pique Stark's interest." 

"Of course, if you want to get approved by Miss Potts, you'll have to have a legitimate backstory as well." 

"Oh, right, the famous Pepper Potts. I always forget you work with them." 

Phil nods. "I've been assigned to the Stark case since the first Iron Man incident, yes." 

"Any tips?" 

He pauses. "I'm not sure one can actually be prepared for Tony Stark." 

She sighs. "That's essentially what Fury said, too. But I've got to try." She pushes herself off the couch and picks up the very large file she'd brought with her. Clint frowns at it. 

"Thank God I don't have homework." 

In retaliation, Natasha nonchalantly steps on Clint's toe with her heel when she exits the room. 

-

Her debrief post-Stark, though attended by both Fury and Hill, is surprisingly short. She's dismissed after fifteen minutes, and when she leaves, Fury is barking into a radio about something. She doesn't worry about it - it's not her business, and if it is, they'll let her know - and starts towards Phil's office. She doesn't get far before Hill appears behind her, calling her name. She stops and turns, raises her eyebrows as the other woman walks toward her.

"Yes?"

"I just wanted to congratulate you on a job well done with Stark. Fury wanted to send me," and Hill makes a face that reveals all her thoughts about Stark, "but I knew you could handle it." 

Natasha pauses. She's been sent on solo missions before, but this was the most highly classified one, and could possibly be the start of the biggest operation SHIELD has ever undertaken; if no one less than Director Fury's right-hand man suggested her for this mission, that's possibly the highest praise she's ever gotten. She cocks her head to the side, lets a soft smile appear on her face. 

"Thank you," she says, "for believing in me." 

Hill smiles a full smile. "It was my pleasure, Agent." 

There is a small moment as they smile at each other in the middle of the hallway, and just when Natasha is about to clear her throat and hurry away, Hill says, "Coulson and Barton aren't here, by the way." 

"What?" Natasha pretends like she doesn't know what Hill's talking about; officially, none of them are supposed to spend half as much time together as they continue to. 

"Coulson is heading up the operation in the southwest. He's been in New Mexico for a week, and he took Barton with him."

"I don't know why you're telling me-"

Hill holds up a hand. "It's not secret, the three of you. If nothing else, the way you work together would scream it. It's not a problem; that's not why I'm telling you. I just thought you'd like to know before you headed to Coulson's office to find no one there." 

For the second time in ten minutes, Natasha finds herself at a loss for words. She had honestly already felt a little off-center when Clint hadn't come barreling at her from some hidden spot in the rafters within minutes of her entering the building, but she hadn't realized anyone had noticed. 

"The problem in the southwest has been a little more time-consuming than anyone realized, but they should be back soon." 

Hill stands there, her hands behind her back, until Natasha nods. Hill rightly takes that as her cue to leave. Natasha doesn't move for a few minutes, trying to figure out what exactly she should do in HQ without Phil or Clint or a mission to occupy her time. Finally she heads toward her room, the one she lived in right after Clint found her. She hasn't spent more than a quick few hours of sleep here and there in that room for years, but it still holds the TV and DVD player Clint got her, so she settles onto the bed and watches whatever's still in there. 

She drifts off during an episode of _Cheers_ and sleeps better than she has in years. 

-

Four days later she hears rumors that the New Mexico contingent is back, stuck in a terribly long debrief with Fury, and so she makes her way to Phil's office, sits on his couch, and waits. 

"Well, I just almost got blown up," he says as he walks in hours later, no preamble, like he knows she's going to be sitting there, just like she knows Clint will walk in behind him. Phil tugs at his tie and heads for his desk, while Clint sighs and collapses next to Natasha. 

Her heart stops at the words, at the weary looks on their faces, and when Clint curls into her side the way he only does when he's feeling shaky post-mission, it's all she can do to school her features into something resembling normal, one hand automatically moving to stroke Clint's head. "That bad, huh?" she asks, trying to keep her voice steady. Her boys almost got blown up, and she wasn't there to protect them. _Her boys_. 

"It was a fucking god from legend, Nat," Clint says quietly, his voice muffled by her shoulder. "Thor." 

"Like 'Norse god of thunder' Thor?" 

"And his brother Loki," Phil says, three beers in his hands as he walks over to them, his suit jacket and tie long gone. "The brother was the worst part." 

"The brother had the walking death trap machine." 

"You weren't even there for that," Phil says, sitting on Natasha's other side and setting all three beers on the floor next to him when she waves them off. 

"But _you_ were," Clint says, sounding wrecked. When Natasha looks at him, his eyes are closed and his face looks pained. She strokes his head again, and then looks back at Phil. 

"I'm okay, though," he says softly, his eyes on Clint. Clint reaches out a hand without opening his eyes, setting it on Natasha's lap, palm up. Phil scoots closer, wrapping one arm around Natasha and Clint and putting his other hand in Clint's. He sighs and rests his cheek on the top of Natasha's head. "There's some shit going down, kids," he says, and it's one of the only times she's ever heard him curse. 

"We'll just have to stick together to get through it, like we always do," she says, feeling almost a little ridiculous for the sentiment, but it's Phil and Clint; if she can't be sentimental with these two, then who?

"Yeah," Phil says, though he sounds far away. Clint doesn't say anything, just curls closer, his hand tightening on Phil's, and Natasha holds on, meaning to hold on forever. 

-

It is only a week before they head in separate directions; Natasha gets sent on a long string of small solo missions, interrogating small arms dealers and the like, and tries not to feel too disappointed that Clint gets assigned to watch Erik Selvig, hiding in the rafters of SHIELD like always, but keeping an eye on mystical goings-on somehow related to the Avengers Initiative. Phil resumes Stark duty, though it's amped up a little more than it was, and life essentially slips back into a semblance of normal. Natasha continues to spend her off-duty hours in Phil's office, and Clint can usually manage to slip in as well, and they pass four or five months in much the same way they've passed the last few years. 

The Avengers Initiative is scrapped six months after what Fury calls "that week from hell." Supposedly it's because they're haven't found enough good people for a team: Banner's on the run, with nary a sign of the Hulk; Thor has officially been off-world for long enough that it doesn't seem like he's coming back anytime soon; and Stark continues to demonstrate his disdain for SHIELD every time he is called in for a consultation. Instead, they turn to using the Tesseract to make weapons. Phil, though officially he agrees with Fury, spends a good hour ranting to Clint and Natasha in the privacy of his office about it, all "This is exactly what Captain America hated" and "What, are we going to turn into HYDRA next?" Natasha makes the mistake of pointing out that maybe it's actually a good idea; she's still a little sore about Phil almost getting blown up by alien tech from another world. Phil doesn't see it like that, unfortunately, and the next thing she knows she's on an undercover mission in Argentina for almost a month. 

She doesn't have any contact with either of them until three and a half weeks in, when Clint texts her a picture of Phil on her secure phone. Phil's face is completely slack, but his mouth is slightly open in shock and she thinks she can see a brightness around his eyes. The message just reads " _Cap's alive_." 

She gets back the same day Phil is set to head out to the arctic with Fury and the expedition; she and Clint sit on his couch and watch as he races around his office like a chicken with his head cut off. He packs and unpacks and repacks his Captain America trading cards no less than four times, all while Clint and Natasha are unsuccessfully trying to hide their laughs behind their hands. When Phil finally settles his bag over his shoulder, a large fluffy jacket in his arms, and stands at the door to leave, he points a finger at both of them. 

"I will not forget all this giggling," he says, trying to look as menacing as usual, but his eyes still have that spark they've had since Captain America was found.

"Absolutely not, sir," Clint says, saluting him. Phil rolls his eyes and leaves, but not before Natasha calls, "I hope you remembered your smelling salts!" after him. Clint bursts out into huge laughter at that, literally rolling on the couch. 

Both of their phones beep with new messages from Phil that say, " _Paperwork. For the rest of your LIVES. Your weapons will be locked in r+d until the end of TIME"_ and make each of them look at the other in horror.

-

When Phil gets back to town, though, he's too busy sitting at Cap's bedside waiting for the man to wake up to follow through on his threats. Phil spends day after day watching his childhood hero; he sits there until Clint finally leads him away.

They settle back into their routine, the three of them. Clint goes back to overseeing Selvig and the Tesseract, Phil goes back to doing paperwork, and Natasha heads out on mission after mission; everything is normal. 

-

Until it's not.

-

"'Tasha," Phil says, his voice sounding tattered. "Barton's been compromised." 

Her heart _drops_ ; she's heard the expression and never really realized what it meant until this moment, right now, hearing three words she has never, ever wanted to hear together. 

-

"Love is for children," she tells a god from legend, but her best friend has been compromised and she can feel the loss in her gut, the way she felt her love so many years ago. 


End file.
